1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunications systems and more specifically to a telecommunications system adapted for transmission of speech and display data over standard, existing telephone lines for audio-graphic communication between parties
2. Description of the Prior Art
It is often desirable to be able to transmit a visual image of data being discussed by parties over a telephone line concurrent with the verbal discussion. For example, a travel agent might wish to show a telephone customer a travel itinerary as they are discussing it, or a broker might want to show a customer a visual confirmation of a financial transaction, which the customer has just made orally over the telephone. Facsimile devices for transmitting data over telephone lines and displaying it for a receiving person in visual form are well known. However, such facsimile technology does not accomodate situations where the supplier of information needs instantaneous transfer of data for visual viewing by a receiver (customer) directly during the telephone conversation.
There are several devices that purport to allow alternate voice and visual display data via telephone lines for special purpose applications, but none of them really provide a general, user friendly system. Lacking is a system in which an agent can intersperse visual display transmissions over the same telephone to a user or receiver between sentences in a voice conversation almost on a real time basis and within the time constraints of natural pauses in the conversation so as to not be disruptive of the conversation.
The U.S. Pat. No. 5,465,654, issued to Neil S. Dumas, describes a more complex conferencing system in which both the agent and the receivers have personal computers and speaker phones, and either one of them can interrupt voice communication through the speaker phones to send data from one personal computer to the other. However, that system is not particularly user friendly, requiring the agent and the receiver to be computer literate enough both to go through a fairly complex set of menu selections, and the visual data transmission requires a quite significant pause or interruption in the voice conversation.
The Cooper-Hart U.S. Pat. No. 4,715,059, and Walker U.S. Pat. No. 4,845,636, both transmit images captured by a video camera during a voice communications. The Brown U.S. Pat. No. 4,700,378, is an example of a system in which a user or receiver wants to access a data base to receive visual data displays via telephone lines and is prompted by a voice synthesizer at the data base operator to press certain telephone touch tone buttons to do so.
There are also several devices that can switch between modes automatically, such as: U.S. Pat. No. 4,815,121, entitled COMMUNICATION APPARATUS RECOGNIZING SPEECH AND AUTOMATICALLY SWITCHING FROM DATA TO SPEECH TRANSMISSION, issued in the name of Yoshida on Mar. 21, 1989, and assigned to Canon Kabushiki Kasisha, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,908,851, entitled FACSIMILE APPARATUS OPERABLE IN FACSIMILE OR CONVERSATION MODE, issued in the name of Kotani et al., on Mar. 13, 1990, and assigned to Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha. Yoshida solves the problem of selectively switching between the data and speech transmission by use of a voice detector. Kotani et al. automatically switches over to voice when the standard facsimile hand shake signals are not received. However, these devices are not conducive to multiple switching back and forth concurrent with on-going voice communications, and they still can leave the less sophisticated users bewildered.
Simultaneous with the upsurgance of new telephone equipment was the development and popularization of the personal computer and modems, which facilitate the transmission of digital data between computers over standard telephone lines. However, modems do not, in and of themselves, solve the problem of obtaining and displaying data for the average telephone user. These modems are often associated with extensive equipment including computers and display terminals, and they still require relatively sophisticated levels of understanding and abilities to use them. Also, as with facsimile machines, not all modem users are in a position to have a dedicated telephone line for data only. Switching between normal voice telephone line usage and data transmission usage can be done, for example, as taught by U.S. Pat. No. 4,723,268, entitled DUAL MODE PHONE LINE INTERFACE, issued in the name of Newell et al. on Feb. 2, 1988, and assigned to International Business Machines, which includes a method of providing the required FCC billing delay for auto answer modems that can be selectively switched between human answer telephone set modes and modem modes.
Modems with their ability to communicate digital data over telephone lines have opened up a whole new world of information exchange. An example of some of the possibilities were contained in U.S. Pat. No. 4,387,271, entitled COMBINED TELEPHONE AND DATA-TRANSFER SYSTEM, issued to Artom, on Jun. 7, 1983, and assigned to CSELT Centro Studi e Laboratori Telecomunicazioni S.p.A. Artom describes subscriber controlled receipt of information by a telephone receiver, a personal computer, and a television by way of a local telephone line. Artom offers some wonderful possibilities for the future of home entertainment and information systems, however such total systems can be rather costly, complex, and still require a fair amount of expertise to operate.
A patent by Barsellotti incorporated a modem internal to a telephone unit for the purposes of receiving and displaying limited visual data, such as the telephone number called. This Barsellotti patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,608,686, entitled TWO WIRE VOICE AND DATA SUBSCRIBER LOOP, issued to Barsellotti, on Aug. 26, 1986, and assigned to the Mitel Corporation, was a step in the right direction. However, once again, it requires special, complex, and expensive equipment.
In a concept similar to Barsellotti, Vij et al. provided a telemarketing system in which a telemarketing switching network can distinguish between several incoming lines. With this device, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,788,682, entitled TELEPHONE SYSTEM ADAPTED TO TELEMARKETING, issued to Vij et al., on Nov. 29, 1988, and assigned to Northern Telecom Limited, product information associated with a particular phone number can be transmitted to a telemarketing agent along with the call itself.
Several other inventions have also addressed some special aspects or problems in combining voice and data transmissions. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,827,085, entitled VOICE AND IMAGE TELECONFERENCING SYSTEM INCLUDING PAPERLESS FACSIMILE MEANS, issued to Yaniv et al., on May 2, 1989, and assigned to Ovonic Imaging Systems, Inc., describes a touch-sensitive display screen with a typical teleconferencing phone, which allows users to sketch a drawing by touching a screen and then transmit that sketch to another user with a similar device. Another patent that extended this idea of combined voice and data communications is U.S. Pat. No. 4,659,876, entitled AUDIOGRAPHICS COMMUNICATION SYSTEM, issued to Sullivan et al. on Apr. 21, 1987, and assigned to SPI Soft Pac International. This Sullivan et al. patent shows combined interactive graphics and audio communication with computer-like display screens on telephones. As with many previous devices, this Sullivan et al. invention requires rather expensive, complicated equipment to replace existing conventional voice communication telephones, and it requires two users of relatively equal and high level sophistication, both with the same equipment.
Consequently, while there are many new innovations in telephone and computer equipment and technologies relating to concurrent voice and data transmission, they either require relatively sophisticated users and special, complex and expensive equipment or they lack high quality, reliable, and nonobtrusive performance qualifies necessary to make them widely acceptable and useable to a wide range of consumers. Such equipment often is designed to replace conventional voice telephone devices as opposed to merely adding to them, and those users who possess an anti-computer bias, cannot afford such high-tech equipment, or for whatever reasons are either unable or simply not interested or willing to acquire the necessary expertise or equipment, are essentially left out. As a result, there was, prior to this invention, still not any equipment available that enabled a person to receive and view visual data over the telephone line concurrent with voice conversation, while interacting with a person who wants to transmit such visual data, and using equipment which allows the receiving party to remain almost completely passive in the visual data transmission process and in the use of the equipment. Thus, prior to this invention, there was nothing available, for example, to allow a travel agent to display a travel itinerary or a broker to display the details of a financial transaction almost instantaneously and concurrently with voice communications over the telephone lines to an average telephone user.